Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-01-17-Speech-3-170"
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"en.20010117.5.3-170"2
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"Mr President, human rights are an inseparable part of the basis of human dignity and law in the Union. They are also universal principles, despite certain differences in emphasis. However, the EU will have no human rights strategy whilst the responsibility continues to remain primarily with the Member States. As there is no strategy, tactics then become the strategy. With human rights that means that political expediency might dictate where and when to intervene when violations are occurring. To some extent that is inevitable.
A community based on respect for, and defence of, human rights, such as the EU, should, however, be able to achieve a more consistent, determined policy on human rights than is the case at present. It would be desirable if the Union had a common voice in this important area. For that reason the opportunity we now have well beforehand to discuss the Council’s priorities in the forthcoming meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Commission is a welcome one.
Human rights violations must be taken seriously at all times and not just when a political excuse is needed. Human rights have intrinsic value, which becomes blurred when they are used as a tool to achieve other, perhaps quite legitimate objectives in themselves, in individual cases, or when gross violations are kept quiet about for politico-commercial, or other, reasons. This is a tendency that can also be discerned in our approach to the questions on the Human Rights Commission’s agenda, regionally, nationally and with regard to the issues themselves. For example, suppression of the freedom of speech or torture with the perpetrators going unpunished, which Amnesty International has recently campaigned against, deserve to be looked into more thoroughly.
action is not enough, then, but neither must human rights merely be a rhetorical sweetener present everywhere, like a political ‘NutraSweet’, with no real practical effect. For the EU’s voice to carry further and more audibly it must have a consistent policy, one that is genuinely its own, and must firm up its work in this area. Interinstitutional cooperation should therefore become more vigorous in the future and the role of the European Parliament in particular should be made more prominent. Above all, we here in Parliament should also activate and honour our rhetorical commitments. That means long-term, systematic involvement in human rights work when it is not directly connected with benefits to be gained or current events covered by the media. We have to make the reporting and monitoring process more effective, which will require not only good will but also adequate resources and diplomatic willingness. Non-governmental organisations and civil societies are sources of indispensable help. They can also bring a breath of fresh air to that vacuum in which we busy about far too much with matters of only rather narrow, topical interest."@en1
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"Ad hoc"1
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